


Elementals

by virtueofvice



Category: Blade (Movie Series), Frozen (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, F/M, Modern Era, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-02-14 20:57:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2202879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virtueofvice/pseuds/virtueofvice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>500 years after the events of Frozen (and Blade II), a visitor is hurled through the void of deus ex machina and arrives where he strangely, perfectly, should have been all along. Dazzlingly unexpected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Listen to playlist here: http://8tracks.com/virtueofvice/frozen

Once, his name had been Xuě. He had been bodyguard to the emperor, the youngest son in a family of masters. A prodigy; granted a position deemed even more honorable than those traditionally held by the warriors of his clan - yet quietly ostracized, nonetheless. Rumors, like bamboo, take root and grow quickly; and it was said that the youngest blade of the Xuě family was perhaps too skilled for his tender years. He served well at the emperor's side, silent and deadly, and obedient to a fault. It was this obedience that, eventually, secured his fate - if, as the soothsayers hinted, it had not been sealed all along. 

Not all shen are beings of light, and some bear no allegiance at all. They are clever and without sentiment, and yet man has been striking deals with them since the esoteric and natural worlds first crossed paths. Thirsting for knowledge, for the celestial plateau of perfection; Xuě slowly slipped beneath the surface of that other world with the devotion of a fanatic and the obliviousness of a sleepwalker. Whispers of supernatural gifts and bargains carried him to a position of fear and respect; and then beyond. Despite his ascendant stars, his life had become more dark dream than reality. But such a long tale, extending far beyond the constricting boundaries of the mortal coil, can be told only as a blizzard is told - in tiny, myriad pieces; each small step forward a universe unto itself. 

The thing about death for the undying is that it's a paradox. So is vampirism, by its very nature; or a young queen out of control, binding her homeland in ice and snow. Anomalies beget anomalies. And so, when the vampire known as Snowman punched his way through the fabric of space and time to land, a frozen stranger in a strange frozen land, he was only vaguely surprised.


	2. Chapter 2

The queen of Arryndale had a fragile, distant sort of beauty that entranced, like a twirling sheen of late frost on the first fruit of spring. It was apparent to all that she was in the flush of her youth, riper and more beautiful than she would ever be again. The hectic heat of summer faded into autumn, and then true winter; seasons passed like snowflakes in a blizzard and in truth, the whispers of the court reached Elsa before her own realization. 

In her own eyes, her loved ones changed little as the seasons passed; she was just one bright bloom in the familial bouquet of youth and prosperity that surrounded her. But as the years passed her unchanging loveliness hardened into something unnatural; and as her loved ones grew old and died around her, the snow queen began to realize the same release would forever be denied her; and despaired.

Eventually, the accusations of witchcraft grew too much to bear in the undertow of her engulfing grief; so she left her home in capable hands and departed; seeking solace first in the frozen mountains - then, as time passed and the world moved on, in the anonymity of cities.

The aching loneliness that had first drawn her from Arryndale only intensified over the years, a yawning black emptiness stretching into unknown infinity. The reflection in the mirror, pale and perfect, mocked her with its impassive radiance. Not only had time's needle stopped; but the hurts and injuries of the mortal coil seemed removed from her as well. It was as if she was made of ice in truth. 

500 years passed, endless dark winters and spring thaws, and she wandered. Spinning the wheel from queen to hermit, princess to pauper and back again; she changed her identity and never stopped moving. Time carried her like an errant ice floe to the modern era, and she hid her crystalline eyes under dark makeup, her solitary fragility beneath short skirts and long gloves. Night life in particular suited her; under the deceptive glow of neon and stage lighting, all the young faces around her looked like her own - detached and jaded, hopelessly beautiful. 

Crossing one long leg over the other, Elsa hooked the spiked heel of her boot around the leg of the barstool and sipped her drink, looking bored. Though few eras of fashion had suited her as well as this one, she still looked back fondly on the past when taking in the finery of the painted youths around her. Black, in all its myriad forms; the sheen of vinyl and PVC, glint of metal, occasional bright flash of vivid green, violet, or deepest crimson. 

It had been a long time since she'd felt it - that ripple of unease, a sense of power that tingled up between her shoulderblades and radiated outward, a chill breathing out through her lips and tracing frost beneath her fingertips. She looked around, seeking the source of her disquiet; but detected nothing. 

_Surely nothing._ She allowed herself, then narrowed her eyes as the bright reassurance of the thought evaporated. Quietly, stepping through the rear door, came the most lethal apparition she'd ever seen.

Palpable danger emanated from him, like ripples in a pond, or the smell of electricity in the air before a storm. People on the dance floor turned to look, the natural reaction of prey to predator; an instinctive knife cutting through their intoxicated haze and ten thousand years of evolution. Truly a wolf among sheep. No one remembered Elsa anymore; her legend, left untouched through the centuries, had turned to ash in the annals of cultural memory. She passed through them unseen, save for her unnatural beauty. But this man, whatever he was - he represented a threat older, darker, hungrier than anything she could have contrived. Repelled by the violent tension, she nonetheless felt a pull of fascination, her eyes lingering even as her body stepped from the bar and headed for the exit. She stared at him even as she slipped away, disappearing into a darkened corridor with the silence of a shadow and the entitled nonchalance of a club girl - a role which until tonight she had played flawlessly.

Under the sneering red glow of the exit sign; he caught her up, eyes gleaming even in the darkness and haze of drifting smoke. His hand closed over her arm in a grip that seemed improbably strong and she knew at once that she could not best him physically - fight or flight were equally absurd. He stared at her, dark intense gaze demanding an answer to a question he did not ask. On instinct, lashing out like a frightened horse, she splayed her hand over his heart - a lance of her power bursting forth and slamming through his chest. As the spear of cold passed through him, he grunted as if in pain, or surprise; staggered momentarily - but his grip on her did not relax one iota.

She loosed her power in a cracking snap, and they split apart like two halves of a glacier. Drawing back, she hissed through clenched teeth - "What are you?" - before darting through the door and vanishing into the night.


	3. Chapter 3

Snowman scowled, hand on the hilt of his sword as he glared down from the rooftop into the alley below. He had been watching the ice woman - so he thought of her, in quiet moments - for weeks, making no real attempt to hide himself. There seemed to be none of his kind in this soft, innocent world, a fact which simultaneously dismayed and relieved him. He had known nothing but the harsh and militant companionship of his packmates for many years, but it was a joyless existence, colorless and cruel. When he had felt the mutated fangs of his ally pierce his neck, he had been alarmed, but strangely vindicated - the betrayal was one he had expected all along. 

There was, of course, a certain pleasure in being the only predator in a world of such soft, pliant prey. He enjoyed the hunt - it was in his very DNA, he had been a killer long before he'd become a vampire. But Snowman was not greedy, and took no enjoyment from ambition or cruelty for their own sake. He could live very comfortably here.

Yet the ice woman… Vexed him. She seemed fragile, an ivory-white dove in this cote of pigeons; and yet strolled through the night unafraid. Even he seemed not to frighten her, merely to offend her sensibilities with his strangeness. She sensed his alienation, in the same way that he sensed her similarity. She was not a vampire - but she was the only creature he had seen thus far who was not dull, vulnerable… human.

And as he watched her, staring down from rooftops and fire escapes, lingering at the edge of a crowded room - she watched him back.

It was maddening, in a way; there was not the faintest trace of the coquette in her gaze, no wary subtlety. He, accustomed to going unnoticed in the shadowed background of humanity, suddenly felt almost naked beneath her gaze. She stared at him boldly, making no attempt to hide the lingering of her eyes. It was as if she dared him, though in truth her expression could have been challenge or curiosity and he would not have recognized the difference. 

Had he been anyone else, he would have taken her and shaken her senseless, demanding answers, a map to explain the hidden intricacies of the new-old world in which he found himself. But such was not his way. Men of the Xuě household were schooled from the cradle in restraint. And at any rate, their shifting standoff was comprised of equal parts caution, antagonism and impossibility - even if he'd somehow found the right questions to ask, he had no voice to speak them with. In exchange for the preternatural skills that had carried him unscathed through twelve centuries, he had bargained his voice in a literal sense, seen it ripped from his throat in a flash of blood and gleaming teeth. It was not something he had used overmuch, and the loss rarely troubled him. There were times, however, when the sound of his own voice in the endless eternal silence would have been a comfort. Such as the moment he died. 

As she passed by beneath him, he dropped from the rooftop to land, crouching, on the rail of a fire escape across from her window. Though he did nothing to make his presence known, she glanced in his direction. He was nothing, barely a shadow against the wall, the gleam of amber eyes apparent only if he moved - which he did not, as rooted to the narrow rail as a sycamore tree. She sensed him nonetheless, but pretended she did not - not in an attempt to fool him, with the jerky hesitant nonchalance that gives the lie to playacting. She moved through the small but well-kept apartment with grace and ease, her movements relaxed and unconcerned. He realized that she was, in a quiet way, mocking him - her routine changed not one whit; it was affected in no measurable way by his presence or absence. 

He pressed his lips together, dark brows furrowed over brooding amber as he stepped off the railing and dropped, fifty feet and soundless, to the ground.


	4. Chapter 4

The next time they meet, they argue.

He had chosen a club he knew she frequented, hunting danger with dark and searching eyes. The girl he'd chosen slumped limp in his arms, her blood warm on his lips, the sweetness of it filling his mouth. He looked up, smirk stained crimson, and saw her. 

He'd known she would come. 

Elsa stepped forward, as if she would stop him, though the maiden in his grasp still breathed and was a stranger to her. Her eyes were wide, but her hand trembled not a bit as she held it up in warning. "Let her go." 

He did, weak form a tiny unconscious shadow in the corner of the bar. He backed away, teeth glinting wetly in the dark as he slipped through a side door into the frozen night. Elsa followed him; pointless, unwise, fascinating. Something different, tugging at her ennui, dragging her toward change. 

"Monster!" She hissed at him, heels clicking on asphalt in the quiet alley. The insult seemed halfhearted; repeated from rote, a line in a play. Delivered without venom, only a flare of indignance to prompt him to look at her.

 _You tried to kill me the night we met. I need blood to survive._ He sneered, one pointed fang glinting in the wan halflight. The thoughts were apropos, but private; Snow was deeply unaccustomed to both the will and the means of explaining himself to others. But Elsa tilted her head as if she had heard him speak. 

"What?" She asked, as if politely requesting he repeat what he'd said. Her manner relaxed, dangerous hand lowered even as the hair on the back of her neck prickled in almost premonitory recognition. 

Snow frowned, stared at her. _What?_

Elsa held out a hand again, this time with fingers outstretched as if she would touch him, though he still stood several paces away. Slowly, she brought her fingertips to her own head, and tapped her temple. "I can hear you."

 **I can hear you.** His eyes widened, amber a gleaming band around dark pupils, dilating in the dark to better see this strange creature who claimed to hear his voice in the emptiness. The voice in his head, the quiet subtle tones that would have been his had he remained a man; the voice that had fallen silent centuries ago. 

_How?_ He demanded, stance aggressive, untrusting. 

"I don't know. But I can hear you. In my head." She shook her head as if to clear it, returning to harry the issue like a jaybird. "What are you?"

 _Vampire._ The word came out easily, a concept at one with him, as much a part of him as his golden skin or the way a sword felt in his hand. 

She frowned, as if looking for something to compare it to, then nodded. "We have legends. Stories. I didn't think they were real."

 _I'm a stranger here. I'm alone._ Complex truths, transmuted into their simplest essence through the inherent honesty of thought. 

She bit her lip, stared at him for a long time, then trained her eyes on the pavement, nodding once with a jerky hesitation. "Me too." A pause, and she raised her gaze to his again, cold and blue. He admired the steel in her. "You shouldn't have hurt the girl."

_She'll live. I need to feed._

"There are other ways."

He stepped forward, tilting his head to one side, amber eyes casually tracing the curve of her throat, the slenderness of her limbs. _Are you volunteering?_

Despite not having much to do with her life, Elsa remained somewhat attached to it. She had failed at giving it away many times, death refusing her gift as if turning down a needy lover. Her pulse thrilled, heart beating rapidly at the mere suggestion of a break in her unending solitude. Another creature of legend, standing before her. Intriguing, elemental. But baring her throat to a storybook stranger? "No." She took a step back.

Snowman smirked, the closest thing to a laugh; but she sensed his humor. _Another time then._

He moved so fast she barely saw him go, the first flurry of snowfall settling on her bare white arms as if on the smooth contours of a marble statue. Frowning, deep in thought, Elsa took herself home.


End file.
